Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 14th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

I am grateful to their lordships for their work on the Bill. We support the amendments before the House.

Let me be plain from the outset: our objection has never been to steelmaking, or to the men and women who make steel; it is to a Government who have crashed around and used blunt instruments without ever having a detailed plan. Hope is not a strategy, and a blank cheque is not a plan. Nationalisation is a bad idea, and nothing that has yet been said at that Dispatch Box has told the House where the spending stops. The Government are taking us down a fast and expensive road with no idea where the exit lies. Even members of the Government concede in private that they rushed into something that they now repent at leisure.

Let us look at what we have learnt over the passage of the Bill. The Government and their Lib Dem little helpers in the Lords voted against a Conservative amendment in the name of the noble Lord Hunt to limit support to £2.5 billion over three years. That is almost £2.3 million every single day. The cap was not plucked from thin air—that £2.5 billion was the Government’s own figure. In their refusal to accept a cap, the Government concede that the figure is likely to be more. That could have been 35,000 new police officers, eight brand-new hospitals or more than double what the Chancellor raised over the course of this Parliament by destroying the livelihoods of British farmers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Today, we Conservatives have launched a campaign to save the summer job. Employment rights do not help young people if they cannot get a first experience of work, and they are trapped in a Catch-22 situation of needing experience to get work but not being able to get any during their education years. Young people say it, businesses say it and Alan Milburn, the former Labour Minister, says it. Will the Government now back our plans to save the summer job, cut employment red tape, support seasonal working and lower taxes?

[Kate Dearden]

The Opposition’s suggestion of getting 13-year-olds to work later hours on a Sunday is simply not serious. What is serious is the review that we have conducted with Alan Milburn on how we can get more young people into employment. We recognise the challenge, and that is why it is an important priority for us. We inherited a situation in which nearly a million young people were not in employment, education or training. That increased by 250,000 before the general election, and the Conservatives did absolutely nothing about it. Young people written off by a legacy of rising youth inactivity and declining apprenticeship jobs. That is why we are serious about this. I appreciate and welcome Alan Milburn’s review, which is detailing how we can improve the situation. He has looked at the challenges that we are facing and laid bare the scale of them. We have already taken action to help young people by bringing forward the biggest youth employment reforms to create 500,000 opportunities for young people through our £2.5 billion youth guarantee, and we will continue to do more.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

This week, our hard-pressed automotive industry has sounded the alarm: under the zero emission vehicle rules, British car makers are being fined for making precisely the type of cars people want to buy. That is costing them £5 billion a year, denying consumer choice, damaging British jobs and putting automotive firms at risk. Like me, the Secretary of State met with car makers earlier this week, so will he listen to them, adopt the Conservative policy of scrapping these rules and support our great British automotive industry?

[Peter Kyle]

I am very grateful for the hon. Member’s question because he raises important points. First, we are a listening Government, which is why we have acted to tackle the energy costs faced by the automotive sector—of course, we inherited those energy costs from the Tory Government. The BICS will lower the cost of producing cars in this country.

The hon. Member mentioned the ZEV mandate. I am listening very closely to him on that. In general terms, when it comes to environmental regulations across the piece, it is really important that we deliver net zero targets and get to that destination. We need to be creative in how we get to that destination, and I speak in general terms. He spoke to the automotive sector earlier this week, as I did. I was very honest about these issues. He should have been honest, too: his party brought in the rules in the first place—he should have apologised for them if he does not like them.

Steel Trade Measure

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement.

We welcome the partial U-turns that have been announced, the engagement there has been and the reflection, even at this very late hour, that the original proposals from the Government would have done great damage to British manufacturing. This decision could, however, have come months ago. If not, it could have come weeks ago, when Members of the House and businesses started raising the alarm and engaging with the Department. It took this Government—if Members can remember—more than a year and three quarters to come up with their original steel strategy, yet the industry is now expected to adjust with less than one week to go. That is not a reasonable way on which to proceed.

The Government have left untouched the 50% tariff rate, and that will do great damage to British manufacturing, house builders and those who construct the nation’s infrastructure. It will mean higher inflation, fewer jobs, fewer homes and fewer public projects. The Government have made some welcome concessions on how much steel can be brought in but conceded nothing on the rate that punishes imported steel the very moment that the quota is exceeded.

I know, as does the Minister, that he has received significant private representations from industry on this issue, particularly from defence and aerospace, and I imagine that the Minister does understand that this measure will not be enough. Of the 60 codes that we believe are relevant to aerospace and space, just two codes have been removed, and while quota uplifts have been applied, they are not particularly useful to the small-scale, high-value defence manufacturers, as commodity buyers will snap up all those quotas at the start of the year before they get a look-in.

As a result, we are, I am sad to say, putting the defence of this country at risk by imposing a shock to defence industry prices, and it will either be the Treasury or the Ministry of Defence that picks up the bill. Projects such as AUKUS, Tempest, drones and much-needed munition rearming will all be vulnerable as a consequence.

Finally, let me put some questions to the Minister on behalf of the industry. Will he commit to publishing the impact assessment on downstream steel sectors before Parliament rises for the summer? Does the Minister understand that by not exempting pre-agreed purchase contracts, which may in some cases run for years, he is damaging good, decent British manufacturing firms, even those in Rhondda and Ogmore? His exclusions rest on a test of “no production, or production paused”, but will he explain how he justifies keeping specialist grades in scope when in some industries, such as aerospace, it takes years to certify suppliers? Can he confirm that the EU’s reciprocal quota for exports from the UK will fully protect the 2.4 million tonnes of annual British exports of steel that would otherwise be at risk?

[Chris Bryant]

I honestly just do not think that the hon. Gentleman understands how this works—any single element of it, to be honest. Let me first address his point about the timing. I would have much preferred to give greater notice to everybody, and I worked towards being able to do so. Unfortunately, one of the key parts of the interaction is with the European Union, and we only completed our negotiations with the European Union over the last few days. I point out that the EU itself has not as yet announced its quota, either with us or for any other country, and will not do so until Monday. I wanted to bring this forward as soon as I possibly could.

The hon. Gentleman refers to U-turns. We have listened to the concerns both from specific businesses—I know that some are very pleased with some of the categories we have changed and the quotas we have increased—and from hon. Members, who have brought their concerns to the Chamber or directly to Ministers. We have tried to address as many issues as possible, but, as I said in my statement, there are difficult trade-offs here.

The hon. Gentleman suggests that we should cut the 50% tariff rate. I am not sure that is a point he has made anywhere previously, but if we had a lower tariff rate than other countries, in particular the European Union, we would—this is why I do not think he understands how any of this works—immediately become the dumping ground for all the cheap steel in the world. We would be a magnet for that and we would be exacerbating the problem for steel production that we already have in the UK.

The shadow Secretary of State raised the question of defence. I have looked carefully at this. Of course, he wrote a letter this morning that made some rather ill-founded remarks about what is likely to happen to defence. First, Sheffield Forgemasters is already providing significant amounts of UK steel precisely into the UK defence sector. When the defence investment plan is produced, I want it to deliver jobs in the UK rather than just everywhere else in the world, and I would like more of our defence industry to be based on using UK steel, because that would be a double win for us.

I note that when the previous Government were in place, they commissioned: Type 26 frigates—65% of that steel came from Sweden; Type 31 frigates—all the steel from Finland; and four Royal Fleet Auxiliary Tide-class tankers—44,000 tonnes of steel from Korea. When the Dreadnought-class nuclear ballistic submarines were commissioned by the last Government, where did the steel come from? From France! We can do far, far better than this. It is absolutely preposterous that only 30% of UK steel needs are being met by UK steel production. We need to get that number up. We have committed to getting it to 50% and that is why I am immensely supportive of the measure that we are introducing today.

I also want to make it clear that a lot of categories of steel—as I said, three quarters of the steel by value—is not in scope of the measure at all. That means it can come in and out of the UK without any tariff. Also, the 50% tariff is not on all the steel in a particular category; it is only on that above the quota. In significant areas, we have increased the quota and, for instance, in categories 4, 6, 12A and 7, which is particularly important for the defence sector, the final quotas are higher than the levels of historical trade because some of the previous quotas were not even being fully used. I am afraid that the hon. Member is wrong in nearly every single element of his analysis—and that is not the first time, is it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I have pages and pages on the Windsor framework in relation to this somewhere, but I have only two words on it here. Apart from anything else, part of our negotiations with the European Union had to be about how we ensure proper provision for Northern Ireland. When the EU announces its measures on Monday, I hope that the hon. Member will be pleased with where we have got to on all that. He asked about financial mitigation, which I think means compensation. I am afraid that I am not able to offer that; I want to be very straight with him.

As I say, there are trade-offs here. We need to ensure that we have a strong steel sector. I was thinking about my two grandfathers. One grandfather was a naval draughtsman and an architect on Clydeside. My other grandfather worked on the railways in the docks in Cardiff. For both of them, steel was absolutely essential. I am sure when they were working on Clydeside or in Cardiff, they would have expected all the steel to have been made in the United Kingdom. If we do not take this step today, we will find that we will not have any British Steel at all, and that is why we are keen to take the necessary and, I believe, proportionate steps that we are taking.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know that in a former life, the Minister was punctilious about standards in this House, so I seek your advice as to how he may correct the record. He referred to a letter that I believe he said his office had received this morning or yesterday. In fact, the Department will have received copies of two letters, one which was sent a week ago, not on my behalf, but on behalf of hundreds of thousands of small manufacturing businesses that were desperately worried, with one week to go before the tariffs. There was a second letter on Tuesday, jointly from me and the shadow Defence Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), again, sent on behalf of this vital industry, which keeps us all safe. I have not yet received a reply to either of those. I would not necessarily have expected to, but it would not be right for the record to reflect that he had only received the letter this morning.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. The Minister is in his place and may wish to respond.

Draft Employment Tribunal (Extension of Time Limits) (Miscellaneous Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2026 Draft Employment Tribunals Extension of Jurisdiction (England and Wales) (Amendment) Order 2026

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2026 General Committees

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. It is also always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Halifax. She is the second Minister in her role in this Government, and I sincerely hope that we are not due a third. I wish her well over the coming weeks. There was a time—[Interruption.]

[The Chair]

Order. The hon. Member for South Norfolk knows not to walk in front of me.

[Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)]

I apologise, Sir Alec.

[Andrew Griffith]

There was a time not so long ago when we had a Government who said that they were obsessed with growth—that it was their core, underlying mission. Casting my mind back to that moment makes me feel old, but my goodness, what a long way we have travelled over the last almost two years.

I say that because no Government who were obsessed with growth, no Government who were genuine about creating the economic conditions for prosperity that provide our public services with the resource they need, and no Government who were sincere about giving the young people of this nation the opportunity to find work and climb the ladder of opportunity would, in all seriousness, have introduced these measures. It belies their lack of knowledge of working in business, for they do not understand the stifling impact of piling regulation upon regulation and doubling the period of jeopardy for an employer at a time when, as the Minister acknowledged, our employment tribunals are drowning, deluged and failing.

I suspect that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee have some appreciation, although maybe not the full horror, of what is going on right now in our employment tribunals. I would certainly like to hear more from the Minister and her officials about their plans to remedy a situation that we all should recognise as a crisis. To be fair, this did not all happen on the current Government’s watch. It dates back too many years, but it is getting worse by the week.

The open caseload of single claims stands at a record 64,157 in the last available figures, which is a 55% increase in a single year. One does not need Carol Vorderman’s maths ability to understand that the backlog has grown by more than half in the last 12 months alone, firmly on this Government’s watch. It is not too late for the Government to recant, to see the light and the wisdom, on this statutory instrument, and perhaps ingratiate themselves with the next Prime Minister and Chancellor, who are more firmly committed to the growth that has eluded the incumbents.

New single claim receipts rose by 39% last year to 50,000. That is the addition to the stack of claims, while—please write this down—disposals fell by just 12%. As we sit in this non-air-conditioned Committee Room this afternoon, more claims are being added to the pile. The backlog is growing. The prospect of claimants and employers receiving settlement of those claims now dates back more than two years in many parts of the United Kingdom. Again, I urge the Minister to correct me if any of these statistics, based on the figures of the Office for National Statistics on gov.uk, are somehow erroneous, or if I am portraying a false narrative of the situation as it exists today.

In these Committee Rooms, we are supposed to engage our minds and properly look at the evidence, not just vote the way we are told. Wouldn’t that be a good idea: evidence-based policymaking, rather than simply yielding to whatever the Government ask and whatever officials put in front of us?

The Government’s overall economic analysis of the Employment Rights Act, of which these regulations are a small measure, implies that the volume of cases in the failing, unreformed employment tribunal system is expected to increase by about 17%—this is the economic analysis of the Department for Business and Trade from January 2026. That is 17% more cases on a backlog of 64,000, which is growing by the day and resulting in delays to claims of more than two years in many parts of the United Kingdom. I will not detain the Committee with every single measure in the 330-page unemployment Act that the Opposition oppose—that is largely behind us—but there is no reason, when we are in a hole, to keep digging and make the situation worse.

The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that about 80% of the costs that the system imposes on employers are passed on through lower wages, so it is the workers we seek to represent, our constituents, who ultimately bear the cost. Business has continually warned that increasing the already 13-week time limit would potentially significantly increase the jeopardy and therefore the risk.

And who ultimately pays the price? This may be a fact that Government Members do not wish to fully contemplate, assimilate and understand, but the people who pay the price are the young people who are denied those opportunities. I would be delighted if any Government Member wanted to intervene to tell me the rate of unemployment among 16 to 24-year-olds today, and how much that has increased in the last 24 months under this Government as a result of both the swingeing increases in tax and the crushing amount of red tape.

In the absence of anyone intervening, and to move us forward quickly, I can reveal that the figure is 16.2%. That means that one in six of our young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are actively looking for work—who are dispiritedly firing off application after application—are simply unable to find the work that they seek. That is 735,000 young people, almost three quarters of a million.

I believe in the good of Members, so I do not really believe that anybody on the Government Benches came here to put young people out of work, but the law that we pass most often is the law of unintended consequences. I urge Government Members to look at their consciences and decide whether putting more of our young people out of work is really what they came here to do.

I will conclude with a few points to the Minister, if she would be so kind as to respond. First, she talked about the idea that six months is somehow fairer than three months. If that is the case, and if it is the Government’s position, will she make representations to the Chancellor to similarly apply that 13-week increase to 26 weeks when it comes to HMRC? The ordinary taxpayer does not have that same luxury of time. If it is the Government’s new principle that the only fair period is 26 weeks, there will be plenty of opportunities to extend that across to other parts of Government in a symmetrical way.

Can the Minister share any specific assessment her Department has made of how many additional claims these two instruments alone will generate? We have heard about the 17% overall increase in tribunal claims, but can we have an understanding of the additional claims that relate just to these measures, so that Members can make an informed decision when they cast their vote? That is unless the Minister is kind enough to withdraw the measures today.

Given the 64,000-case backlog, what resources does the Minister plan to give the employment tribunal to remove the constraining factors by having additional judges, hearing rooms and sitting days and longer hours? Perhaps she has a comprehensive plan that can reassure hon. Members that 64,000 cases is just a transient backlog, and that it will not grow. Finally, if the Minister is confident—as I am sure she is—about the Government’s reforms, which she mentioned in passing, will she commit today to publishing a clear timetable that identifies the day on which the backlog will be reduced to the pre-2024 level she inherited?

Steel Tariffs

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2026 Commons Chamber

12.40 pm

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade if he will make a statement on steel tariffs.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Chris McDonald)]

May I start by giving the apologies of the Minister for Trade, who is in Turkey, negotiating further trade deals for British industry?

On 19 March, the Government set out the UK’s plan to introduce a robust new trade measure from 1 July. It will limit tariff-free steel imports, as compared with the steel safeguard measure. Any imports above the levels in the measure will face a 50% tariff.

Protecting primary steel production is crucial to the UK’s critical national infrastructure and defence. That is why we have published a long-term plan for steel and are introducing a new trade measure countering the unprecedented and damaging effect of global overcapacity. It is simply wrong that only 30% of the steel that we need in the UK is made in the UK.

Steel is essential for advanced manufacturing and engineering, and the interests of the domestic steel sector and downstream industry are best served together. A thriving steel industry strengthens supply chain resilience for downstream businesses and limits their exposure to global supply shocks. We need to balance the need to protect domestic steelmaking with maintaining secure, reliable supply chains for downstream businesses.

Imports will remain important. The Government have engaged extensively with businesses across a range of sectors, including manufacturing, when developing this measure. Indeed, last week, I held a roundtable with downstream industry, together with my hon. Friend the Minister for Trade. We, and the Secretary of State, also heard from several colleagues about the concerns of businesses in their constituencies. We are listening carefully to companies throughout the supply chain as we finalise the measure.

We have introduced a transitional arrangement; the new measure will not apply to goods under contract before 14 March 2026 and imported between 1 July and 30 September 2026. We have introduced a carry-over mechanism to give importers more flexibility. We will review the measure after 12 months to ensure that it remains fit for purpose.

We are also engaging intensively with the European Commission on our respective steel measures, and are working to find a bilateral solution that protects vital UK-EU steel trade. This engagement reflects the unique structure of our trading and security relationships and the interconnectedness of our supply chains, but we need to be clear: if we do not act, we will not have steel-making in the UK. The US, Canada, the EU are all acting; we must too.

[Andrew Griffith]

I thank the Minister for that statement.

Aerospace, the automotive sector, Formula 1, the construction sector, and manufacturing businesses that use steel, which employ 300,000 people, are all being impacted by Labour’s botched tariffs. Many specialist steels—the Minister may have heard this from manufacturing businesses—are not, as it stands, even produced in the UK. That is a real issue when it comes to, for example, categories 14 and 27, which are used in aircraft wings, or in defence applications that we need to make ourselves safe. Where defence companies have cost-plus contracts, the tariff on steel that is not made here will just get added to the bill for the Ministry of Defence.

Will the Minister listen to Stephen Morley, president of the Confederation of British Metalforming, who says:

“The UK risks accelerating the decline of its manufacturing base rather than preserving it”,

or Simon Boyd from REIDsteel, a British steelmaker, when he says that these measures will kill off

“downstream customers of steelmakers in the UK”?

I am sure that is not the Minister’s intention, but with just two weeks to go, with respect, it is time to stop listening and start acting.

Will the Minister answer three questions? First, will he confirm today that the measures will not be applied retroactively throughout the whole life of existing, agreed contracts? Secondly, will he exempt steel—especially in categories 14 and 27—that is simply not made here in the necessary volumes? Thirdly, after listening to industry, will the Government please delay these tariffs for at least six months so that they can get this right?

[Chris McDonald]

In line with your guidance about constructive debate, Mr Speaker, I am sure we will have some constructive debate now. The shadow Minister has raised some legitimate questions, and I am very happy to provide the answers.

I think we all recognise the importance of the steel industry and the downstream sector—there is definitely a point of agreement there. The point about timing is a critical one, and on the face of it, the request for a delay is not unreasonable. The important thing to recognise is that our steel safeguard measure expires on 30 July. It is not possible for us to extend that measure; it has lasted for eight years, and under World Trade Organisation rules we cannot extend it, so new measures are required. Of course, the EU is introducing a new measure on 1 July, and the US and Canada have also introduced new measures. If we were not to introduce a measure, the UK would become the global dumping ground for subsidised steel. That would be the end of our primary steel industry, so something needs to be done.

In designing the measures, we have been very careful to ensure that they are targeted at those steels that are made, or could be made, in the UK. However, the categories are quite broad, and we acknowledge that some steels that are not, and could not be, made in the UK could be swept up in them. That is the point of the quotas. Since our draft measures were published, we have consulted extensively with industry—I have known Steve Morley for a very long time, and I listen very carefully to what he says, but more than that, we have carried out extensive consultation. The Minister for Trade and I have met the downstream group on three occasions, and I have met the Aerospace Growth Partnership, the Construction Leadership Council and many other businesses. We will be publishing our final measures in line with our EU negotiations when they are completed, in time for 1 July.

High Street Businesses: Government Support

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

What a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell, and to make common cause with so many hon. Members. Our passion for our high streets—something we share, as proud representatives of our constituents—has come through in all the contributions to the debate. I thank the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) for sharing that with us. I speak on behalf of my own wonderful high streets in Midhurst, Storrington, Arundel, Steyning, Petworth, Pulborough and Henfield —we are so lucky to have them, Ms Lewell. I hope that you will come and visit them, and the Minister always has an invitation to see the wonderful enterprises in my constituency.

Here I fear that the consensus may break down a little, but I hope that the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage and his colleagues will join me in condemning the decision of my local Lib Dem district councils to increase parking charges and bleed the life out of our high streets—an unwarranted headwind, transferring economic life into the coffers of the town halls. I invite the hon. Member to join me in seeking to reverse that unwarranted decision.

The Minister is a good man, and many of these measures were not of his making, but I fear that what we are seeing is the Government’s fundamental—albeit perhaps unintentional—misunderstanding of business: what it is to combine so many different factors of production, to take risks and to try to give back, through economic activity, to our communities. We heard many examples of that today. We heard about the difficulty for employers of making ends meet with the unwarranted increase in national insurance—not just the rate but, in particular, the threshold. Anyone who really understood the granularity of business, and the number and mix of part-time employees who were previously outwith the national insurance net, would never have made the decision to reduce the threshold from £9,100 to £5,000, encompassing at a stroke hundreds and thousands more employees. What do businesses do when faced with the anaemic top-line growth in the economy and the pressure on consumer household spending? They have to sit down on a Sunday afternoon and work through the shifts, trying to pare back hours and work out which employees they may let go.

We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) the challenges of making the business rates calculation add up. I accept that this challenging problem did not start at the last election—I am very ecumenical in that sense; it has been creeping up on us for a long time—but the first and best advice that I got was that when you are in a bit of a hole, you should stop digging. Rather than the permanently lower business rates that we were promised and that businesses relied on—many placed their votes accordingly —we have got permanently higher business rates. That started with a swingeing increase. The Government, under pressure from other parties represented in this House, listened—eventually—and have mitigated that increase through some welcome measures in the short term, but they have done nothing to provide the long-term relief that for many would mean they had a viable future as a business.

I know that the Minister will have been given some brilliant lines to read out this afternoon, but I ask him, in all seriousness, to hear the will of the House on the perennial challenge of business rates, perhaps work on a cross-party basis and see what we can do over time to lance this very difficult boil. This is part of an overall picture of spending first and taxing second—certainly, that is the view of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, from his description of meetings with so many of his colleagues.

The challenge is that we are just not seeing any top-line growth, any confidence in the economy, anything to make people think that it is a good idea to go and start an enterprise, to hire people, to take some risk in our high streets. We all want that for our communities. We want our high streets full of lively, independent, diverse shops catering to the needs of local people, not merely those catering to the lowest common denominator —vape shops—or, meritorious though they are, charity shops in perhaps too great an abundance.

There is a real desire to work on the future of the high street, because we all care so much about it. We need the employment opportunities for our young people. We have heard about the challenges for the hospitality sector. VAT is of course one potential relief, but what people are telling me is, “Just do something. Stop piling more and more taxes and levies”—packaging taxes, bed taxes—“on us. Let’s have a little bit of a moratorium.” My party’s fully costed plan would go much further by taking 250,000 small businesses out of business rates entirely. I know that the Minister will disagree, but I am afraid that we would go back to the very settled status of employment law that was good enough for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. It persisted for many years and gave many of our young people the opportunity to get their first foot on the ladder, particularly with starter jobs. Indeed, some hon. Members have spoken today about their own first experiences working in hospitality and retail.

I will leave it there, but I am very keen to hear from the Minister what new hope he can inject into our souls and hearts—we want to take it back to our high streets to give people good cheer, so that they are no longer just surviving, but thriving. I leave the final word to the Prime Minister’s Chief Secretary, a man infamous for his self-confidence and, I am told, more than a little ambition. Upon discovering that the nation’s growth plans are in the hands of the right hon. Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves), he said:

“It doesn’t fill you with confidence.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

First, I congratulate the Government on securing the Gulf Co-operation Council deal. Success has many authors, and Members on both sides of the House have been part of these negotiations as Ministers, but a win is a win. These are—[Interruption.] These are our historical friends and allies, and this is part of a growth agenda.

Summer is approaching and young people are graduating. The Office for National Statistics reported this week that, as a direct result of this Government’s choices, one in six young people is looking for a job, but cannot find one. Sectors like retail and hospitality are shedding jobs by the thousands. Will the Secretary of State finally accept that, well-intentioned or otherwise, the Government have got it wrong?

[Peter Kyle]

It speaks for itself when the Opposition try to take credit for the Government’s achievements. It shows just how good this Government actually are. However, I am grateful for the hon. Member’s warm words about the GCC deal. A lot of work went into it, but of course when we came into office, we were practically on the starting line; we were so close to it at that moment.

I will be really up front about youth unemployment. This issue faces most communities in our country, and we should have much more cross-party support on it. In the interests of offering an olive branch, let me say that as someone who had a challenging pathway through education into employment, I recognise the issue. However, the Opposition must admit that, in the three years before they left office, youth unemployment went up by 250,000. Yes, we will work together, but it does—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Secretary of State, my words apply to you as well as to Back Benchers, because I am trying to help your Back Benchers get their questions in. We will now hear a very quick question from the shadow Secretary of State.

[Andrew Griffith]

I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. I hope he would agree, cross-party, with the Tony Blair Institute, which has said that the UK must restore “dynamism” to its labour market, rather than imposing restrictions such as the Employment Rights Act 2025. Could the Secretary of State, who is a good man, at least promise me that, if he gets to serve as Chancellor in a Government led by his friend, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), he will use that chance to change the Government’s approach?

[Peter Kyle]

Dynamism is increasing in our economy, and that is why we have so much growth—growth that the Conservatives failed to deliver in their 14 years. As for young people, we have the youth guarantee, which includes a six-month funded programme placement that provides a rich environment for kids who were put out of work—a lot of the time, by the Conservatives when they were in government. It gets kids back into work, and does so sustainably.

Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 21st May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:

“this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill because it believes that politicians should not be running businesses; because expropriating businesses sets a precedent that will deter inward investment into other UK businesses; because the Bill exposes taxpayers to unlimited liabilities; because the powers that the Bill confers on Ministers are far wider in scope than would be required for its stated purpose; and because it fails to contain any measures that would address the issues which are currently making domestic production of steel unprofitable such as higher employment costs and policies in pursuit of net zero, such as carbon taxes and associated regulations and levies.”

Conservatives will never be neutral about the deindustrialisation of our country, but we do not believe that politicians or Whitehall bureaucrats should run businesses. Instead, we need a Government who do fewer things better, such as defending our nation, securing energy supplies and restoring the nation’s finances. We believe in British steelmaking and the importance of sovereign capabilities—not just steelworks, but the steel supply chain, critical minerals and many defence- related technologies—but that is not what this Bill does. This Bill is the Government’s attempt to break out of a mess we warned one year ago they were getting themselves into, and it fails even in the Government’s own terms. It does not keep the blast furnaces open and it does not guarantee that military needs can be met domestically.

Let us be clear what we are doing today. We are being asked to nationalise British Steel, and put the British taxpayer permanently on the hook for a business that this Government had every chance to keep in private hands, but chose not to. They ignored plans to open electric arc furnaces on Teesside, and chose to let the situation deteriorate until the only option left was the one that suited their ideology. The Prime Minister went kowtowing to China, gave it an embassy spy base and, instead of a deal on Jingye, came back with a box of fortune cookies with only a bill for the taxpayer to be found inside.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I just wish to seek some clarity from the hon. Gentleman. Is the Conservatives’ position that they would prefer British Steel in the hands of the Chinese than the British?

[Andrew Griffith]

That was a waste of an intervention. If the hon. Member lets me continue, I will explain exactly what the Conservative plan is for British Steel, and it is a better plan and a more sustainable plan than we have heard from the Secretary of State today. This Government did not inherit—

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

As the shadow Minister was unable to respond to the previous intervention, would he like to explain why the Conservative Government sold British Steel to the Chinese in 2019 against my specific advice?

[Andrew Griffith]

When it suits the hon. Gentleman, he claims to be a fan of the late Margaret Thatcher, but he seems to have forgotten that most of her time in office was spent untangling the mess of Labour’s past nationalisations. Unlike him, she did not bend with the wind or find herself in the same Lobby as a Government who have hiked taxes to record highs, driven wealth offshore and drowned business in red tape.

Members would like to know what our plan is, and our plan is to address the cause, not the symptoms. [Interruption.] Labour Members would do well to listen to this, and we might have more of a steel industry left if they do. We cannot have an industrial policy for steel without an energy policy for industry. Britain has the highest industrial electricity prices in the world, and every choice the Government are making has pushed those prices further up. This week, they voted against new licences in the North sea, choosing to import from Norway gas that could be drilled here, at a cost of 200,000 jobs and £12 billion in tax revenue.

The Secretary of State knows this and his Back Benchers know this, but the Prime Minister is too weak to stand up to his windmill-fetishist Energy Secretary. We have offered an alternative. Our cheap plan would slash energy prices and improve energy security. Why would the Government not want that? If they were genuinely interested in securing the future of steelmaking, as well as those of many other industries, they could have come here today and adopted that plan. Instead, this Bill is an indictment—

[Mr Brash]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Griffith]

I will happily give way, as long as the hon. Member is going to talk about our cheap energy plan.

[Mr Brash]

I have heard that the hon. Gentleman thinks energy prices should come down, and we do not disagree on that, but he still has not answered my question. Does he think British Steel should remain foreign-owned—yes or no?

[Andrew Griffith]

The only way we are going to have a sustainable steelmaking industry in this country, and the same applies to the manufacturing sector and our defence supply chain, is lower energy costs. That is the only sustainable way.

[Mr Brash]

Yes or no?

[Andrew Griffith]

We have a plan for sustainable steelmaking. The Government do not have a plan for sustainable steelmaking. Ministers themselves have admitted that the blast furnaces in Scunthorpe will close. They are reverting to a plan that already exists.

The Bill is an indictment of this Government’s modus operandi—a spray and pray Government who write blank cheques from the taxpayer and call that a strategy. We are doomed to relearn the hard lessons of the 1970s: if it moves, tax the hell out of it; when it stops moving, subsidise it. It was socialist idol Tony Benn who wanted to nationalise everything that moved, and one result that the Government may care to look at was the state-owned Kirkby Manufacturing and Engineering company, which simultaneously made car radiators and orange juice. When the Government last ran British Steel in the late 1970s, the company’s losses hit £1.3 billion a year. Since Labour’s botched nationalisation of just a year ago, it has already spent £500 million of taxpayers’ money—£1.3 million a day.

Where is the Government’s published, costed and scrutinised plan for what nationalised British Steel will look like in five years’ time, or even in one year’s time? I have read the Bill and there is not one. There is no provision for a proper impact assessment before the sweeping powers are used. There is no acknowledgment of the monumental decommissioning liabilities—in the billions—that will sit on the Treasury’s balance sheet. There is a sunset clause, but it can be extended indefinitely by Ministers—a sunset where the sun never sets.

The House deserves better than this. We deserve a Bill with a proper thought-through plan. The Government have turned a negotiation into a crisis, a crisis into an emergency and an emergency into this nationalisation. We know that Ministers, however well-meaning, will be unable to resist using their power to tilt the playing field in favour of steel businesses that they themselves own: no longer the referee, they will be on the pitch wearing one of the teams’ shirts. There is no better example of that than their plans on steel tariffs.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)]

What does the shadow Minister make of tilting the balance in favour of communities in Redcar and across Teesside, when his Government sat on their hands and saw the blast furnace go to the wall? Is that his definition of sustainability—to let those businesses and communities collapse?

[Andrew Griffith]

The hon. Member would be better addressing that question to his own Ministers, who, notwithstanding the nationalisation, acknowledged that the blast furnaces will cease—they will go dark and close on this Government’s watch. The Bill does not protect blast furnaces and he should invite the Minister, when he winds up, to talk about the future there. There was a plan to invest in British Steel in Redcar to secure those jobs, but the Government pulled the chain—

[Andy McDonald]

What are you talking about?

[Andrew Griffith]

There was absolutely a plan before the election to open arc furnaces in Redcar—that was absolutely case—and to move Scunthorpe operations to Redcar.

I asked the Secretary of State to address the issue of tariffs. There is no better example of the folly of these plans—

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Andrew Griffith]

No, I am going to make some progress on tariffs. A number of hon. Members have raised this very important issue, shedding light on the way that the Government are tilting the playing field on tariffs. Under this Government, we have already seen a flurry of Trump-style tariffs—doubling steel tariffs and halving quotas—that elevate the interests of one firm over the automotive, aerospace, advanced manufacturing and defence sectors. Firms involved in the supply chains of AUKUS and Tempest are now looking at shifting tooling and jobs to other countries, instead of manufacturing components here.

[Saqib Bhatti]

I thank the shadow Minister for giving way; he is making an excellent speech. Specifically on tariffs, does he agree that the approach is illogical? Reducing quotas will decrease the supply, and increasing the tariffs will increase the cost. I listened to the Secretary of State very closely. He talked about getting domestic production here, but by the time that happens, most of the businesses will have gone to the wall. Does my hon. Friend agree that the approach is illogical?

[Andrew Griffith]

My hon. Friend makes exactly the right point, and that point has been made by other hon. Members and across the manufacturing industry. We are at risk of losing critical parts of our defence, aerospace and automotive supply chains.

[Kit Malthouse]

Does my hon. Friend agree that although the Bill appears to be an attempt at providing a simple solution for one industry, we need to be careful what we wish for? A huge amount of steel is used in the car industry—I do not know if Members have seen the number of Chinese cars appearing on our streets. If we have elevated and protected steel markets in the UK, at a time when we have a massive global oversupply of steel, we will not stand a chance of competing with the finished goods that use all that cheap oversupply. We will end up subsidising the car industry like we did back in the 1970s. That would have a particular impact in my constituency, where firms such as Stannah Stairlifts use steel in advanced manufacturing, and face having no choice but to consider offshoring their production.

[Andrew Griffith]

My right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) have made exactly the right point: we need a more thoughtful approach.

I have written to the Secretary of State, as have many of my colleagues, asking that the tariffs are delayed for six months while the Department does more work; that the Government investigate more specialist grades of steel; that within the broader tariff buckets, they look again at the steel alloys used in the defence, aerospace and automotive sectors that are simply not made here today, because there are perhaps unintended consequences of the tariffs; that they be more forensic in their approach; and that they bring forward the measures the Conservatives have talked about on industrial energy costs, which are damaging not just the steel industry but many other industries’ and our basis on which to compete.

There is no point securing what the Secretary of State thinks is in the national interest for one steel manufacturer in a particular location if the foreseeable consequence, unintended or otherwise, is to ship offshore large parts of our high-end automotive manufacturing, engineering and defence industries, so that they are lost forever and conducted in other countries. I have raised that serious point with the Minister, and I ask him to address it.

[Luke Myer]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Andrew Griffith]

I will give way if it is about this particular point.

[Luke Myer]

I am afraid that I want to give the hon. Member another chance to answer the question from my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald), which was not about the prospect of a future EAF on Teesside—a prospect that I support but that the Leader of the Opposition confirmed from the Dispatch Box was not as advanced as the hon. Member claims. My hon. Friend’s question was about the crash closure of the blast furnace at Redcar in 2015, which ripped 3,000 jobs out of our region. What message does the hon. Member have for the people of Redcar, whose Government he was in when that happened?

[Andrew Griffith]

I am afraid that the hon. Member ought to look again at the calendar, because I was not only not in Government but not in this House—I was getting on in business trying to help grow the British economy. When the same issue arose in Port Talbot, it was the previous Government—indeed, my right hon. Friend who is now the Leader of the Opposition—who took action and were willing to back the private sector owner to secure the future of steelmaking in Wales. That was what we did in Government.

We are talking about the issue of tariffs because it is intrinsically related to the Government and the taxpayer taking ownership of one participant in a complex industry supply chain. I know that on the Government Benches, some of the truths that we share today may not be immediately popular, but past Governments failed because they were happy to do what was popular in the moment, without looking at the long-term consequences. The truth is that we should not be nationalising British Steel, and certainly not with the Bill in this form—my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East made the point about the sweeping nature of the clauses, whatever we think about the Secretary of State’s intentions.

We have demonstrated in the past, and we will again, that there are other options, such as partnering with the private sector and negotiating a better deal. The Conservatives would fix the cause, not the symptoms; we would save steelmaking in this country not through state quick fixes, but by fixing the state itself. We would not pit industries against each other, as Labour is now doing, and we would not sit idly by for a rerun of the 1970s horror show that Labour made Britain sit through the last time around.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

With a six-minute time limit, I call the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Chris McDonald)]

As I was preparing for today’s debate, it struck me that 60 years ago this summer, this House was debating steel nationalisation and the England team went on to win the world cup. We are back here discussing steel nationalisation again, so I have high hopes for the summer.

Sometimes it is informative to learn from the past. Going back to the steel nationalisation of 1966, the Minister of Power opened the debate and said that

“there is no manufacturing industry of such basic importance to the British economy.”—[Official Report, 25 July 1966; Vol. 732, c. 1224.]

Of course, he was right then, and it is true now. However, the steel industry is so good that we have not nationalised it twice; we have nationalised it thrice, because the steel industry was also partly nationalised in 1948. The Minister of Supply said:

“Without steel the life of Britain would collapse.”—[Official Report, 15 November 1948; Vol. 458, c. 53.]

That is absolutely true, as we have heard from Members of the House today.

As the Minister for Industry, part of my mission is to increase the productive capacity of our industry. What we have seen in the steel industry, particularly during 14 years of the Tories, is productive decline. They presided over the loss of great steel plants and a reduction in the productive capacity of those steel plants. The thing is, the decline in market share—from 80% to 30%—was not inevitable. It was a choice born out of inaction and out of a lack of industrial policy.

The reason that this Bill is so important is exactly the same as the reason it was important in 1966: there has been a great technological shift in the industry. Back then, it was continuous casting; now, it is electric arc furnaces. The industry has been de-capitalised by years of under-investment, and it needs to be re-capitalised. Productivity fell off a cliff under the previous Government. It fell repeatedly following the closure of the Redcar blast furnace, and productivity must be improved. These are not the words of someone who is wedded to a socialist principle of nationalisation. They are the words of someone who has spent his life in the steel industry, who ran a business in the steel industry, and who is dedicated to improving productivity in our industry.

I heard the words of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), when he opened the debate, and I was quite disappointed. He and I met earlier this week, and my colleagues sitting behind me might be surprised to learn that he was thoughtful and probing in the questions that he asked me. He made some really interesting points, and we had a good discussion. I thought about his points afterwards, and I found it really interesting that he had thought about the things that we will have to bear in mind when we pass this legislation. But what has he done? He has fallen into the Conservatives’ usual trap of presenting this as an ideological debate, instead of a debate about the function of an industry that is vital to this country. That is how they have prosecuted this debate.

I learned something when I was working in the industry. Two years ago, I was running a business in the steel industry. Twenty years ago, I was working at the Scunthorpe steelworks. More than 30 years ago—the House will not believe it—I left school and got a job in the steel industry. There were a lot of changes over that time. Sometimes I stayed in the same job, but the company and the badge on my hard hat changed. When it changed from British Steel to Corus, that was a big blow to how people felt about it, but I will tell the House one thing that I recognised: ownership matters, and it makes a difference. Strategy matters, and it matters where the head office of a business is. People care about the area where they work, and those things are important. The workers care, communities care and we care, but the Conservatives do not care—that is quite clear to me.

[Andrew Griffith]

I will be very brief. I thank the Minister for his remarks. One ideological difference he has not mentioned once is the huge gulf between those on our side and his party on energy, and the Government are not going to have a sustainable steel industry due to energy.

[Chris McDonald]

Yes, the hon. Member is right. There is a gulf there: the Conservatives were in favour of some of the highest industrial energy prices in the world. We have delivered an increase in the supercharger benefit from 60% to 90% and introduced the British industrial competitiveness scheme. Through our investments in chemicals, ceramics and, of course, steel, we are supporting British industry with its operating costs on energy and its capital costs to improve its productivity as well.

In steel communities, they are proud people. They are people who can stand on their own two feet, and they want to; they do not want subsidies. They have pride and they have dignity in their work, and when I went to the Corby steelworks recently, I saw the sacrifice of individuals and communities with their hard and dangerous labour.

Business and Trade

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Wednesday 13th May 2026 Written Corrections

[Chris Bryant]

Of course there are specific things about the Scottish economy that we want to drive forward. For instance, 54% of Scottish goods exports go into the European Union.

[Andrew Griffith]

The Government do not create jobs; business does. With unemployment rising, this is the last chance to ask the Secretary of State a question ahead of the start of April when a tsunami of business rate rises will hit. Shops and restaurants will see a 50% increase on average and the business rates of hotels will double. He and I both represent wonderful Sussex constituencies full of hospitality, high street and tourism businesses, but young people need those jobs. For their sake and for others, will he finally postpone his business rate rise?

[Peter Kyle]

I enjoy these exchanges with the shadow Secretary of State. I note that Reform’s self-styled shadow Secretary of State—or, as I call him, the shadowy Secretary of State—is not in his place, despite being just next door in the Tea Room a few minutes ago. I think that speaks volumes.

The shadow Secretary of State knows that the private sector has created 380,000 jobs under this Government. We will continue to grow the economy and the number of people in work, and make sure that people benefit from all the rights we are delivering, which are pro-business and pro-worker. He spent 14 years letting down Britain. Now he has spent 18 months talking it down.

[Official Report, 12 March 2026; Vol. 782, c. 489-490.]

Written correction submitted by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the right hon. Member for Hove and Portslade (Peter Kyle):

Single Status of Worker

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders) on securing this important debate. I regret that he himself was a victim of unemployment, cut down in his prime by a capricious boss, although I have greatly enjoyed working with the current Minister, the hon. Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden), to try to do what we all seek to do: improve the employment lot of our fellow citizens.

Single worker status is not a minor legal tidy-up; it would be a fundamental restructuring of the labour market—the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough mentioned that in his opening remarks. For that reason, the Conservatives believe that we should proceed cautiously. We cannot have it both ways. This Government cannot deliver a once-in-a-generation change to workers’ rights—330 pages of new legislation that has caused a degree of indigestion in the employment market as it passes through it like an egg through a snake—and then immediately come back and say that we need to unleash even more uncertainty. The law that we pass most often in this House is the law of unintended consequences. Although we are well-meaning, it behoves us all to have regard to the ever-increasing proportion of our young people who are unemployed and unable to find work, in part no doubt due to the additional regulatory burden.

Although the Conservative party does not, of course, oppose a consultation on this subject—if that was a commitment given by the Government it is in the interests of good faith and democracy that they proceed to have such a consultation—we would nevertheless be extremely cautious about rushing too quickly to legislate. In the interests of time and productivity, I will leave my remarks there.